At Caron, we believe that spirituality is at the core of, and critical to, addiction recovery. Whatever your faith or beliefs (including agnostic and atheist spiritual stances), our spiritual care team will work with you or your loved one to develop connectedness apart from addiction and other behavioral health issues.

When a person comes to Caron for treatment, they are often without hope or meaning in their lives, and may be experiencing sadness, loss, fear, worry, guilt, shame, and demoralization. Addictions and co-occurring disorders take a tragic and terrible toll on our lives, our relationships, our sense of self, and our hope for the future. These problems touch our lives spiritually as well as physically, socially, and psychologically.

The Role of Spirituality in Addiction Treatment

Spirituality has been integral to Caron’s treatment programs since our founding, and is a core component of a 12-Step program of recovery. Our spiritual care staff work within each patient’s integrated treatment team to facilitate repair, renewal, and new development in the individual and their family system. The spiritual care staff combines lecture, group, and individual services to assist patients and their families in healing spiritual wounds and moving forward in recovery.

Spiritual services are especially significant at Caron in relation to six areas, around which we offer specific spiritual counseling:

faith and spirituality, including the 12-Steps

grief and loss

guilt and shame

anxiety and tension

relationships

patient secrets

Our Spiritual Services vary widely, from Sunday chapel to meditation and more. Our patients and their families leave Caron with some form of connection to spirituality, gained through connections with others and the 12-Step process. This connection enables individuals to rediscover purpose, meaning, and dignity in their lives, and to form creative, life-giving, intimate relationships with self, others, the universe, and a Higher Power.

We Focus on What Spirituality Means to You

Individuals come to Caron from diverse spiritual and religious backgrounds. Our Spiritual Care staff are trained to address the needs of all faiths, and are respectful of all religious or spiritual beliefs, including agnostic and atheist spiritual stances. We offer both denominational and non-denominational spiritual paths, and treat all religions and faiths equally. In our programs, the distinction between religion and spirituality is a source of constant discussion, investigation, and exploration.

Caron’s spiritual care team maintains relationships with sanctioned religious leaders of various faiths, who frequently take part in treatment programming to explore diverse issues relating to spirituality. Caron Renaissance patients also have access to local places of worship, and accommodations are available for the needs of patients of every faith.
Spiritual Care Training is offered to select seminarians, local clergy, and appropriately prepared lay persons through an innovative program of addiction-focused Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE).

Many of our patients begin to find spirituality through their connections with others in the treatment process, developing positive, adult relationships within the program and the larger community. Others regain spirituality that their addiction had blocked for years.

Caron has a deep commitment to connecting patients and families in ways that uniquely suit their preferences and backgrounds. This means respecting and even engaging their specific faith tradition if one exists, or working in a way that embraces and understands atheism, pluralism, or agnostic skepticism and integrates that in ongoing recovery.
Caron utilizes a variety of experts and resources to bring specific accommodations and support for